CHAPTER XIX
The Glory of the Consulate
NO, poor Josephine could not altogether under-
stand her husband; no more indeed than any
lady so adorably feminine can understand one
so essentially masculine. But if she did not pause to ad-
mire, the world did, gasping its huzzas or its equally
flattering envy and hatred, as he crowded these shining
years of the Consulate with an array of deeds such as no
man, within the same span, ever accomplished before. Con-
queror and statesman, the man of business as well, there
was no department of national life that did not feel the
impress of his hand. As the alcade of a Basque town, the
maire of a hamlet paternally looks after the welfare of his
children, in short, has a finger in each little local pie, so he
devised recipes, selected ingredients, mixed, rolled, and
cut out the dough, fluted the edges, and shoved into the
oven all the national pies, at the same time keeping an
eye on much other Continental pastry.
In short order, he renovated the educational system,
established a school of medicine, normal, polytechnic, and
agricultural institutions, and one for special training
in foreign languages; drew up his scheme for the great
University of France, with its branches in different cities;
and regulated and coordinated two hundred and fifty col-
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